


Like Blood Running Warm

by loversandantiheroes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, F/M, Implied Harassment, Suicide mention, The Master is a dumpster fire in any universe, Vamp!Clara, slowish burn, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-01-22 05:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loversandantiheroes/pseuds/loversandantiheroes
Summary: A snowstorm strands a group of bus passengers at a near-derelict station overnight near the Colorado border.   One of them just can't seem to get warm.  Shameless Whouffaldi Vampire AU.  Warnings and tags will be updated with the fic.





	1. Chapter 1

_Did you call for the night porter?_  
_You smell the blood running warm_  
_I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone_  
_Now something crawls right up my spine_  
_That I always got to follow_  
_Turn out the lights_  
_Don't see me drawn and hollow_  
_Just blood running warm_

_-_ Mark Lanegan, _"When Your Number Isn't Up"_

 

 

_\- 11:07pm_

John Smith, the night porter, sat in the break room of the bus terminal. He should, by all rights, be keeping post behind the counter in the booth, even at this late of an hour, and he knew that. Pointless, though, wasn’t it? An old portable telly spouted crackling spurts of weather reports at him. Worst snow in a decade, record lows, blah blah. He could’ve guessed that himself looking at the drifts forming outside the sliding doors, which he would have to keep shovelled out unless he wanted to end up buried in here. Buried alive with shitty instant coffee, a vending machine that half-worked, and a telly he couldn’t even get a decent signal on. His employers, stingy bastards that they were, were too cheap to provide anything new or at least decent on the premises. In the lounge, where most stations would have the new plasma or LED or god-knows-what-the-fuck-ever craning down from the ceiling or mounted on the walls, there were instead tiny coin-op televisions. Bloody ancient things with built-in radio dials bolted to the arms of the benches and chairs, popping and crackling to life at the generous price of 30 minutes for a quarter.

John had no bloody idea why the hell the relics were still installed. Honestly, he didn’t know such things even existed until he took this post, but the real shocker was that somehow they still worked. By all rights, they shouldn’t be able to pick up a signal anymore, save for the radio dial, not after the big push from analog to digital broadcasting. Converter box wired up to some kind of main switch maybe, that was the best he could figure. Mystery of the fucking universe, or might as well be; tech was not his area. But it made him feel something. Kinship maybe, he thought, cradling the battered porcelain mug of coffee and trying to work some warmth into the joints of his fingers. Old and busted, but still working. Last legs, maybe, but some life still crackling inside.

He’d moved to the States for the sake of his health, that was the joke of it. Christ on a bike, that was the fucking joke. The belching exhaust of a passing lorry in Glasgow last spring had left him doubled over and hacking against a lamp post. Not that a cough was that unusual, he’d been a smoker from the age of fourteen. He was used to the hack-and-rattle first thing in the morning, or when the seasons changed from Damp and Warm to Damp and Cold (Scotland only had the two seasons, really). But this time had been different. Not quite worse, but deeper, like the first signal of the flu.

He’d gone home to his flat that day, made tea, and emptied his tobacco tin into the garbage. Good fucking riddance. Something welled up in him then. A change of scenery would be good. He was nearly fifty-six years old, and he’d never even left the country. Wanderlust, he’d called it at the time. Not entirely untrue, but a little too grand. All he’d wanted in that second was to run away. It wasn’t as if he had any real ties to Glasgow anymore. No friends to speak of, all those were gone. Family either dead or distant. He spun his wedding ring unconsciously. No children. That was almost a relief, considering.

Once he decided to go, he’d sold everything but his clothes and his guitar. Sentiment was only the half of that. He’d never admit it, but he’d simply found the idea of travelling halfway across the world with nothing but the guitar too foolishly romantic to give up. Then on the emptied floor of his flat he’d laid out a massive map of the continental US, closed his eyes, and flipped a coin at it.

He’d spent six good months in Colorado, taking odd jobs and occasionally even sitting in on open mic nights at a local bar, plucking out something of The Velvet Underground or Bowie, and chalking up the slow but steady weight loss as stress and an aversion to American food. Then the cough had come back.

Small cell lung cancer. The fast moving shit. The sort that dug its nails in and decided it lived in you now. Gentrification of the lungs. Radiation or chemo might have bought him some time, but that was the best it could offer. But the pricetag on a few more months was entirely too steep. One look in the clinic window at the thinning husks hooked up to IV drips with pallid eyes and piebald pates, and he’d been out like a shot. On his way to work that night he’d bought a pack of cigarettes. If he was gonna die, he’d at least do it with a full head of hair.

John leaned over the break room table, rubbing at his temples. Too busy feeling sorry for himself to think fucking properly, he inhaled just a bit too sharply. The heating in the bus station was rubbish, the glass windows and sliding doors too thin to keep the cold out, and the electric heater he’d dragged in himself, in a feeble attempt to keep his toes from freezing during the long winter, barely managed to take the chill out of the break room.

Cold air needled into his lungs, and he choked, sputtering and coughing so hard it made his bones ache. Hot coffee sloshed over his hands, and he swore, or at least tried. He needed air to curse, and his lungs weren’t having any of that nonsense. He pounded on the table, sloshing more coffee and overturning a plastic tumbler full of spoons. As the fit subsided, John fumbled in his pockets for his handkerchief and spat, folding it away and trying to pretend he hadn’t seen it come away from this lips bloody.

John sat with his head between his knees until he could breathe evenly again, the sound of the telly all but drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears. At last, he stood, sopped up the mess of coffee, and stumbled out to check the departures and arrivals. Departures from Shotton had been cancelled even before John had limped to work in his jeep. The last two drivers had waved him off as he pulled in, climbing into their own cars to get the hell out of Dodge and back home before the snow settled in with any real intent. Now the roads were closing, and that meant he might be stuck here alone, hacking his lungs up over bad coffee and worse telly until the snow plows went out.

“Fuck,” he muttered. The arrivals list, which had been a string of delays when he’d come in, was now almost completely cancelled. All but one. 11:20 from Cheyenne. Delayed, but still inbound. Wonderful. Snowed in overnight with a busload of pissy tourists on their way to Denver. Wouldn’t that just be a time. “Of-fucking-course. You couldn’t even give me one miserable night off, could you?” he growled at the ceiling.

He kept swearing as he pulled his winter gear on. He’d read once that swearing helped with pain relief; maybe the blue streak would keep him warm. He struggled this balaclava over his head, wondering if it wasn’t time for a haircut. He was a little too proud to still have a full head of hair, grey or no, and had let it go a little wild after the move. _Insulation_ , he told himself. _Too fucking cold to trim the hair back, be liable to freeze to death before the cancer gets a chance to finish the fucking job._

Laughing, John wound his scarf around his head.

 

- _11:34pm_

John had most of the entry cleared and shook down with rock salt and sand, when he saw headlights. The bus lurched up through the drive, crunching and shuddering its way up through the snow to the sheltered entrance.

John leaned on his shovel and flapped a thickly-gloved hand as the bus ground to a stop in front of him. The door hissed open, blowing a gorgeously welcome gust of heated air at him. The driver was a new guy, a round-faced man with close cropped hair and a frankly terrible goatee. “Fuck me ragged,” the driver called down, grinning, “I’m gonna get held up by the Michelin Man.”

John made a gun out of his right hand and popped his thumb. Ka-chow. “You’ll want to get inside,” he shouted through too many layers of damp wool.

The driver frowned, motioning at his ear. “Can’t hear you, pal.”

He waved again, palm in, fingers curling. _Come the fuck in._

 

\- _11:40pm_

There weren’t many passengers, thank God. John counted heads as they shambled in, jamming his gloves into his pockets and fiddling with his scarf which had gone stiff with frost. Seventeen or eighteen, including the driver, who’d pulled off to try and park the bus proper while he still stood a chance to get it moving. An old couple cooed and laughed over the coin-op televisions. A young black woman in a pea-colored coat almost as heavily padded as his own gave him a nervous smile as he struggled out of his balaclava. She asked hopefully about coffee with a London accent that made him do a double take.

“Or tea or hot chocolate?” she went on in the sort of bright tone only the incredibly anxious and incredibly exhausted can achieve. “Anything hot, honestly, I’m not fussy.”

John grunted, both in effort and assent. He’d worked up a fair sweat out there, and the wool was stuck fastidiously to his head. He bent, trying to pull it up from the back, and heard a second voice with an unmistakable Blackpool twinge.

“Easy, mate, you’ll pull your whole head off by mistake.”

Cold fingers brushed at the nape of his neck, curling into the wool, helping him pull. And then he was free, spitting lint and rifling a hand through the haphazard sprawl of his hair.

London giggled behind her hand. Beside her now was a second, significantly smaller woman who was holding his snow-crusted balaclava out to him. For a second, all he saw were her eyes, wide and brown and faintly crinkled at the corners as she smiled up at him. She was lovely, far too lovely, and he was far too old, and oh Jesus Christ he was _staring_.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, trying to flatten the beast his hair had become. “Uhm, the coffee machine’s on the fritz,” he said, gesturing at the line of vending machines and utterly missing the excited upshoot both women’s eyebrows did when they heard his accent. With a touch of annoyance, he noticed the out of order sign had dropped once again and was slowly soaking into a puddle of slush. “I’ve got a kettle in the break room, but the coffee’s instant. But there’s quite a lot of it, at least, so.” He shrugged, grinning awkwardly and trying not to look at the short one with the big eyes.

“That’d be amazing, I’m frozen,” London said, bouncing on her toes.

“Right, well, have a seat, I’ll go and get that on.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Blackpool said.

London scoffed, rolling her eyes. “No accounting for taste,” she muttered.

Blackpool stuck out her tongue.

John glanced at her sidelong as he opened the door to the break room. She noted his hesitation and gave him a quizzical look. “You on your own tonight?”

John frowned. “Yeah, why?”

“Then I will _definitely_ give you a hand. You look fit to keel over.”

The frown deepened into a scowl.

She laughed. “Oh, go on, your eyebrows look like they could shoot laser beams when you scrunch up like that.”

He pushed through the door after her, shrugging his parka off and pretending that he wasn’t trying to hide a smile, unsure why he should be hiding it other than that recurring little prickle that said _she’s too pretty and you’re too old and have you forgotten you’re dying?_

“I like the accent. Where in Scotland?” she asked, already filling the kettle as he stripped off his overalls.

“Glasgow.” He spared her a glance over his shoulder, cocking an eyebrow. “You’re from Blackpool?”

“Ooh, jackpot, well done.”

“Not the sort of accent I expected to hear coming in with the snow in the arse-end of America. I had friends there. The other girl, London, is she with you?”

“No, not really. Met her at the station, actually, we’ve just been headed the same way. Fell in together a bit. It was just nice, y’know. Familiar sort of accent. America’s so bloody big, makes you feel a little less alone.” Her gaze shifted outward and for a moment she was gone, the over the hills and far away sort of gone, hands still trying to seat the kettle without the help of her eyes. On the third try, she finally managed to set the it down on the base properly and click it on.

“Oh. I know that look,” he muttered, sitting down to try and struggle his overalls past his boots. “Someone’s homesick.”

“Something like that.”

He opened his mouth, but the well-meaning platitude he’d meant to give was lost in a deep, lung-rattling cough. He bent double, hugging his knees, eyes squeezed shut, and told himself over and over again _it will pass, it will pass, it will pass._ Spots burst and swam behind his eyelids as his body protested the idea. The muscles in his body froze up, lungs refusing any command except _get out get out get out_. All at once the darkness seemed to deepen, wrapping around him, swallowing him up. There was a bizarre sensation of detachment. Like he was falling into himself, as if his body was some hollow thing he was floating around inside like a sensory deprivation tank.

An arm curled around his shoulders, holding his body up, a cold hand rubbing circles on his back. Blackpool’s voice came floating through the black from miles off like sweet woodsmoke.

“Hey, c’mon breathe, breathe, you’re alright.”

At last, his muscles unlocked, and he sucked in a great whooping gulp of air and coughed again, half-retching as Blackpool shoved a crumpled wad of tissues into his hands. John sat shaking as his breathing leveled, swimming back up into the peaked fluorescent light. The coughing was old, but the blackout, that was new. New and decidedly not good. Blackpool’s hand still rubbed at his back. She was still there. He swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, and as he blinked the tears out of his eyes he saw a smear of red across his knuckles. Fuck.

Blackpool looked down at the blood on his hand, eyes wide with concern and something else he couldn’t quite place. Something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Her pupils were dangerously wide, irises a thin sliver of copper that seemed to pulse and flash. A fresh shudder rippled up his spine.   _Lack of oxygen_ , he told himself.  Surely.

“You need a doctor,” she whispered, searching her coat pockets and finally producing a phone in a chipped blue case.

He grasped her hand, shaking his head. “I don’t.”

“The hell you don’t,” she hissed. “You’re ill.”

“I know,” he said, and that stopped her. He sighed. “Just, please, trust me. An ambulance couldn’t make it through this mess anyway. No point. I’ll be fine in a minute, I just need to catch my breath.”

She stared him down, mouth set and grim. For a long, horrible moment he felt close to talking. To actually saying it. He hadn’t actually told anyone about the diagnosis. There was nobody to tell, and somehow that was the worst of it. He was going to die here alone in a shithole of a town thousands of miles from home, and nobody would know. Loneliness hit him in a crushing wave. He saw himself reflected in the dark of her eyes, drawn and pale and hopelessly lost.

And then she sighed, and his shoulders dropped, and the moment passed.

“What’s your name, Glasgow?” she asked finally.

“John. But mostly people call me the Doctor.” She gave him a funny look and he shrugged. “Old nickname. Long story.”

“No doctor for the Doctor, though?”

He shook his head, resolute.

“Well, then fuck that,” she said flatly. “Glasgow it is.”

He rasped a laugh that set him dangerously close to coughing again. “Suppose I’m supposed to just call you Blackpool, then?”

“It’s only fair.” She smiled tentatively. “But it’s Clara, for the record.”

 

_\- 12:03am_

Blackpool - Clara - handed out hot water in little styrofoam cups. John followed behind with sachets of coffee and tea bags and tiny packets of sugar. London, who Blackpool said was named Bill, squealed happily when he produced a pyramid-shaped teabag out of his pocket.

“Oh that is gorgeous, you’re a lifesaver, mate.”

Blackpool had moved onto the driver, whose name tag was emblazoned with “MASTERS” in off-kilter lettering. His cheshire grin slipped sideways into a leer as she handed him the cup, his fingers lingering on hers a little too long.

“Cheers, love,” he said with an overblown wink and an equally overblown mockery of an English accent.

Blackpool’s face went stony, and she jerked back, moving on quickly to the elderly couple. The grin on Masters’ face spread even broader.

Bill fidgeted, her own smile fading fast. Her eyes flitted around like nervous hummingbirds, lighting on Blackpool, him, the ceiling, the floor. Anywhere but the driver. John clenched his jaw, hands making a decision for him before his brain stood a chance to intervene, accidentally fumbling the handful of coffee and sugar and knocking the cup of still-steaming water out of Masters’ hands and into his lap. The room was entirely too cold (and his kettle frankly a bit too crap) for the piddly amount of liquid to be hot enough to actually hurt him, but the man yowled like it was boiling.

“Ach, so sorry mate,” John crowed, playing up the Glasgow in his voice to the most ridiculous degree he could that still stopped short of Rab C. Nesbitt territory. “The cauld goes fae my joints, sorry, like, I’ll get ye some towels an’ a fresh cuppa, dinnae worry about it.”

He trotted back to the office, more than a little delighted at the sour look on the driver’s face. How’d that saying go? Like a rottweiler licking piss off a dandelion. That was the one. Beautiful.

 

_\- 12:15am_

John ran out an extension cable and a power strip for the ones needing a charge for their phones, which unsurprisingly was all of them. Reception was shit, and the storm was only half of it. No wifi, either. He made apologies, gesturing at the desperately out of date equipment. “Give them another ten years, and they might actually catch onto the indoor plumbing fad.”

Blackpool gave him a wink and a thumbs up over the top of her phone. London rolled her eyes and lamented the absence of Netflix, rather loudly at that. Blackpool shook her head and set to poking half-heartedly at Candy Crush.

London wandered over, leaning back against the desk where John sat. She had apparently memorized the names of the other passengers and ticked them off to John as she sipped at her tea. She pointed out the elderly couple. “Melvin and Tilly. Their granddaughter just had her first baby, they’re going down to visit. Spiky hair over there is named Dan or Dave or maybe Doug, he talks a bit too fast for me to really catch it. The cougar with the long blonde hair is Susan; loves badminton, very straight though, shame. Oh, that over there, that’s Dee. Or D, like the letter, not sure which.”

“And of course, you’ve met Clara,” she gestured at Blackpool, who was still flicking through her phone. “Late twenties, maybe early thirties at a push. Used to be an English teacher back home, I think she said. Didn’t like talking about home though. Breakup or something, I dunno. There’s a sore spot there, I didn’t want to poke. I did learn, however, that she likes Jane Austen, souffles, and apparently, _older men_.” London tilted her head at him pointedly, amused by the way John’s gaunt cheeks colored as he stared fastidiously at his shoelaces. She tutted. “Oh you poor bugger. Five minutes in and you’ve already got it bad. Don’t worry, mate, same here.”

“I really d-”

“Oh like hell. You absolutely have, of course you have. I’m not stupid. And I mean it’s not like I can blame you. Look at ‘er.” She lifted her hands again at the other woman as if her existence was the only proof needed. In fairness, it probably was.

John nodded solemnly. “Alright. So what next, fisticuffs? Rifles at dawn? You can get in an early dig at my honor if you want, I’ll let you go first.”

She laughed. “Naw mate, she is _way_ out of my league. Out of your league too, now that I think about it.” London put a playful elbow in his ribs. “She still likes you though. I can tell. Haven’t seen her smile at a single bloke until she saw you.”

He cleared his throat. “And uh, what about the driver? Masters. What’s the deal there?”

London’s smile evaporated. “He’s a prick,” she said flatly.

 

_\- 12:40am_

“Alright, the suspense is killing me,” Blackpool said at last. She’d taken to pacing around the lounge with her phone in her hands and had veered out of her path to the front desk suddenly.

“I’m sorry?” he said, blinking.

“You said people called you the Doctor. Why?”

John waved a dismissive hand. “It’s really not that interesting, honestly.”

“C’mon.”

“Why do you want to know?”

She rolled her eyes, laughing. “Because I am dying of boredom. And because, quite frankly, I like listening to you talk.” John fumbled his pen. Blackpool didn’t seem to notice. She tilted her head. “How’s your cough, by the way? I suppose I shouldn’t bother you. Talking might actually be a bad idea….oh god, I am rambling aren’t I?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said dryly.

“Right. Well. I’ll just, uhm.” She motioned away.

“I had something of a reputation when I was younger,” he said suddenly, not really wanting to tell but wanting her to leave even less. “Drugs. College,” he shrugged. “Nothing terribly shocking, but also not very legal. Used to get folk turning up at all hours on my doorstep, worn out or strung out or heartbroken. I’d find the right remedy in my bag of tricks to calm them down, get them talking.”

“A stoner psychologist?”

“Basically.” He leaned back and spread his hands. “The Doctor is in.”

 

_\- 1:17am_

Boredom took over rather quickly. D-or-Dee, a youth with a partially shaved head and a pocket full of quarters went around feeding coins into the slots of the tiny mounted TVs, looking for one that still worked. For awhile, several of them crowded around to catch the weather reports - snow, lots of; we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming - but it quickly became apparent that the only thing on this late was going to be infomercials and horrible sitcom reruns. The tiny knot of people dispersed, and the youth settled for twiddling the radio dials, trying to find a signal in the squelch and static.

“How do you manage alone here at night?” Blackpool said, leaning over the front desk and swirling the last dregs of her instant coffee as he scratched at a newspaper with a pen. “This place is practically prehistoric. I keep waiting for a dinosaur to jump out of the ladies’ and come charging out to eat us.”

“Alas, it’s never been quite that interesting. But I manage, mostly.” John wiggled his pen at the desktop, heavily populated with familiar nightshift detritus: thin paperbacks (Vonnegut and Iain M. Banks stuff mostly), crosswords, at least three newspapers, and an mp3 player half-hidden under a pack of L&M cigarettes. A stack of monitors to his right showed crackly footage from security cameras in the station; two from the lounge, one in the hall by the lavs, and two outside at the front and back entrances. He gave them a cursory glance and saw nothing amiss. Then looked again, brows knitting together. That wasn’t entirely true. _Something_ wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He checked the doors again and did a head count, lost count, tried again, distracted by the way Masters was leaning over three chairs to talk to London, who was resolutely ignoring him. John felt the first twinge of a headache at his temples. What the hell was he missing?

And then Blackpool’s arm darted in front of him and grabbed the mp3 player and the cigarettes in one quick swoop that left him blinking.

“Oi, Quick Draw McGraw, give over!”

Blackpool shook the cigarette pack and gave him a disapproving glare. “Seriously?”

He scowled. She seemed to bring that out in him. “I’m old enough, miss, honest. I’ve got ID, I can prove it, even.”

“These can’t be doing your lungs any favors.”

“When did you turn into my mother?”

“Well, if you’re going to be like that I guess I’ll just have to take your toys away,” she said coolly, slipping them into her pocket.

John scoffed. “You really want to be stuck in here with a crotchety old bugger going off nicotine? Trust me, it won’t be pretty.”

“You ought to take better care of yourself, y’know.” The playfulness hadn’t gone, not entirely, but there was a genuine edge of concern.

John felt heat creep up his face and grumbled, fiddling with his hair. That inexplicable urge to tell her hit him again. Christ, he was pathetic. Was this all it took? A pretty face and a kind word, and he was ready to fall on his knees and confess. It was a sin anyway, wasn’t it? Suicide by inaction. Jesus. _Get ahold of yourself for fuck’s sake._

Blackpool held up the mp3 player. “Got anything good in here?”

“Depends on your definition of good.”

Music warbled faintly from the earbuds as she shuffled through his playlist. “Bowie. Lots of Bowie.  Miles Davis.  Screaming Trees. And...Peter Andre?” She gave him a look that was just a hair’s breadth away from mocking.

“It got stuck in my head, ok? It was either download it or put a plastic spork in my ear.”

She laughed, properly laughed, round face all crinkled up, rocking on her elbows. Any indignance he might’ve felt fled immediately. He watched her laugh and felt a little of the malaise drain from his limbs.

Blackpool shook her head at him, eyes sparkling. “Well, that’s good to see.”

“What?”

“You. Smilin’.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. He hadn’t even realized.

She patted his hand. A fleeting touch, but enough to make his heart catch almost painfully. “It looks good on you,” she said.

“Oh, flattering an old man,” he said. “If you’re here for my many many riches, as clearly evidenced by my glamorous, high-paying position, I’m afraid I have bad news.”

“Shut up,” she smacked his shoulder lightly.

“I just thought you should be aware!” he carried on, blustering his way through the blush that wanted to creep up his cheeks again.

A sudden burst of static made the both of them jump. D-or-Dee cheered happily, having finally found a radio signal that wasn’t just weather reports or bad country music. Violin strings cut through the crackle and pop in a lilting swell. A guitar crawled in in response, sweet and slow as molasses. John recognized it, an old Fleetwood Mac tune from the Peter Green days.

Melvin, the old guy, was on his feet suddenly, tugging at his wife’s arm. Tilly cackled, called him a sentimental old goat. And then she went to him, smiling sweetly, hands clasped together, one arm on his shoulder. They revolved slowly, beaming at one another.

A few others joined them, Dave/Dan/Doug, the youngish fellow with spiky hair, offered his hand to Susan, a woman about John’s age who laughed musically and joked about breaking her hip, but went anyway. D-or-Dee snatched up London even as Masters was moving closer and twirled her away while the driver was left sneering. A cold little prickle crawled up the back of John’s neck as he locked eyes with the driver. He was going to be trouble. Before sun up, John was certain, he would be trouble.

Blackpool’s hand was on his again, her eyes locked mistily on the elderly couple. “Dance with me?” she asked suddenly.

He sputtered, half-laughing, an immediate refusal on his lips, but then she turned her head and he saw the tears in her eyes. He knew that look. It wasn’t wistfulness but hurt, like an old wound had suddenly reopened. John felt his heart perched on the edge of something he didn’t want to name, teetering, ready to fall. He could let it, knowing at once he’d give anything to take away whatever pain had filled her, and chastised himself for the foolishness.

As if he could. The plows would go out in the morning and she would be on another bus and that would be it. And anyway, he was old enough to be her father and not likely to see the last snows of the season melt. Nothing lasted, not ever. The kid turned the music up, and John felt it working in his chest. A little miracle, a little spark crackling away inside. Old and battered and still playing something sweet and strong enough to make him feel. Maybe that wasn’t all the music. Maybe.

Nothing lasted, but maybe it didn’t have to last to be worth it.

John squeezed her hand once and made for the door. The security monitors dragged his attention for a split second, but he kept moving. Whatever it was, it could wait another five minutes. Blackpool held her arms out as he rounded the desk. He hesitated, swallowing hard. People were watching. London looked at once hopelessly amused and somehow proud. She grinned at him and popped a double thumbs-up, giggling. The driver looked significantly less pleased. The man’s face had gone rat-like and sour, staring at them both with such utter contempt John could almost feel it on his skin, slippery and unpleasant like motor oil.

But Blackpool’s eyes were turned up to him, wide and dark and too full. _You wave and you wave with your wide lovely eyes_ ran through his head with a kind of sick-sweet flush. He went to her. London pumped her fist discretely in triumph.

“You’re cold,” he said as she curled around his shoulder.

“I’m alright.” She took his left hand with her right. Should’ve felt odd. Probably. It didn’t. She led and he followed, trying to pretend he was more than a gangly wreck of limbs and mad silver hair.

She settled against him, fingers worrying over the ring on his hand. “I hope I’m not,” she paused, pressed her face to his jacket, tried to start again. “I dunno, overstepping or something. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to put the mack on a married man.”

His eyebrows flew up. “You’re putting the mack on me now, are you?”

“Shut up,” she said, but there was a chuckle in it.

“I’m not married anymore. It’s sentiment, I suppose. Maybe just habit by now. Just never taken it off.”

She looked up at him, searching his face as if looking for the answer to something she didn’t quite want to ask. She seemed to find it. He could guess; a ghost of that same hurt he’d seen in her face. “I’m sorry,” she said.

John’s mouth went painfully dry. “You too, eh?” he asked.

She nodded. “We weren’t married,” she said, so quiet he could just barely hear her over the music. “But he was going to propose.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Her breath hitched, and she swayed a little in his arms, head down low on his shoulder. John turned them slowly, putting his back to the room, giving her what little privacy he could. He stared out the window. The snow was coming down harder, big fat snowballs of the stuff forming new drifts in the track he had cleared. The sky outside was a dull, muddied pink, the snow drifts colored orange in the streetlights. Blackpool wept discreetly, not making a sound, but he felt tears soak through his hoodie to his t-shirt, and wondered that even those felt cold. He pressed his hand into the small of her back, thumb rubbing absently against her spine, and he tucked the top of her head under his chin. She smelled faintly of lilac soap and deep, bitter chocolate.

“Thank you,” she said as the song ended.

“What for?”

“For being kind.” She looked up at him again, and he watched the last of her tears spill down her cheeks. “That’s rarer than it ought to be.”

A commercial for Thompson’s Water Seal replaced Peter Green, and the other pairs drifted apart. John barely noticed. Her eyes skimmed down over his face, pausing long enough at his lips to make his heart beat faster. She couldn’t possibly...

A cracking from outside made his head snap up, and John watched as a heavy branch bowed over the power lines, cracking and popping. He swore, dropping his hand to his belt where his maglite hung, just as the branch gave way and fell.

In the split second before the darkness descended, John finally registered what had been wrong with the cctv feed. As light as it was outside, even at this hour, the inside of the station was brighter, and he saw himself reflected in the plate glass of the sliding doors. Six feet of wiry thin Scot. Face a little too long, a little too drawn now, but eyes as bright and cold as the night outside. His hands hovered in midair, clasping nothingness.

Of the woman in his arms, there was no sign. Blackpool had no reflection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Reference Tally:
> 
> Mark Lanegan, "When Your Number Isn't Up" - Title and inspiration.  
> Fleetwood Mac, "Need Your Love So Bad" - Dance scene.  
> Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Wide Lovely Eyes" - The lyric John thinks of when he goes to dance with Clara.


	2. Chapter 2

_\- 1:28am_

The sudden darkness was dizzying, and John shuffled off-balance. The quiet mutterings and conversations around him twisting into startled cries and yelps. Someone screamed. Blackpool’s hand clamped down almost painfully on his, and the dark brown of her irises gave a dull flash in the darkness. The first real thread of fear wound itself around his chest, drawing tight.

 _Well good job, old man_ , he thought, wheezing, _either you’re delirious or you’ve flipped your fucking lid._

The maglite twisted in his hands, sliding back into the ring at his belt and pinching two of his fingers with it. He jerked it free, cursing, and clicked it on. Faces turned to the light like moths, wide and blank and fretful.

“It’s alright,” he said, trying to pretend he couldn’t hear the reedy rattle and whine in his own voice. “It’s alright. Lines go down every winter. Probably the only thing they account for around here. There’s a generator in the back.”

John leaned over the front desk, letting loose an unpleasant hitching cough as the pressure got to be too much. It was like his lungs itched. He searched blindly in the cubby under the desk, listening to the clatter as more than a few things were jostled loose and clattered to the floor. Finally, his hand seized on a thick, rubberized, plastic handle and hauled up a heavy torch lantern. He clicked it on and handed it to London.

“Point it up,” he said, gesturing to the ceiling. “Diffuses the light, should keep you from burning any retinas.”

“Yes boss,” she said with a little salute. She was smiling, but the beam of light from the lantern jittered and shook across the acoustic tiles.

John clucked his tongue, pointing at Masters. “You, give me a hand in back.” He stifled another ragged cough with his jacket sleeve. _Inhale three, exhale two. Not far out enough to make it rattle. Come on, you old fuck, get it under control._

Masters gave him a look that was all puckered forehead and pursed, scowly mouth, but when John dragged on his coat and made for the _Employee’s Only_ door, Masters followed.

“Should be through here,” John said, shining his torch down the narrow hall. To his left was a storeroom; to his right the back office, break room, and the driver’s office, which was furnished with a cot and a couch. At the far end was a heavy door that led to the sheltered storage compartment.

“Not quite sure what you need me for,” Masters said, and for the first time, John heard a faint trace of Northern England in the man’s accent. Not the caricature he’d used on Blackpool; this was real, but faint and faded. Stateside awhile then, maybe. “Starting up a generator isn’t exactly a team exercise. Push button, pull cord. It’s usually pretty fucking simple.”

“Maybe,” John agreed. “But the way things are going tonight, I’d rather not make any assumptions. And besides,” He turned, pointed the beam of the torch at Master’s chest and watched him squint. “I really don’t trust you.”

“I...excuse me?”

“You’re new to this route, yeah?” John turned away and heard the shuffle and squeak of the man’s shoes as he stumbled a little in the dark.

“Yeah.”

“Fairly new myself,” John said. “Only been working here a few months. But you get used to people, y’know? At least a few of them. This stop’s rubbish. Most of the big stuff goes straight through to Denver. We get little outbound trips or layovers and a few little stops and changeovers, like your one.”

“You gonna get to a point, old man?” Masters regarded him strangely in the glow of the torch, head tilted, eyes narrowed.

“My point is you’ve had this route for one night, and there’s already two women walked off that bus that cannot wait to get away from you, can barely stand to look at you, and as far as I’m concerned that tells me everything I need to know.”

“Bullshit,” Masters said, weak light bouncing off his teeth as he bared them in a nasty grin.

“Oh, I doubt that.” John felt his pulse pick up, drumming fretfully in his throat. He gestured to the badge on Masters’ chest. “New route, old ID. I’d be willing to put down a fair chunk of my last paycheck you got shunted off your old route for the same thing you’re trying to get up to now. Probably even the one before that. Must have friends in Admin somewhere, but if they’ve stuck you all the way out here, I’d say you’re probably on your last legs. Been getting too handsy or too mouthy.”

“I don’t think you know anything. I think you just want to play white knight for your little girlfriend back there so you can try and get in her panties before the roads clear, provided you can get that withered old pecker to stand up on its own. What about it, Granddad? That thing even raised its head since Y2K?”

“This is your last shot, am I right?” John carried on, unblinking, patient. “Last run before they drop you for good, before somebody can press charges and make it shit for the whole company instead of just you.”

Masters blinked, his grin faltering and falling into a sneer.

John stepped forward, eyes boring down on the shorter man. “Ah. There it is. Thought so. Now, alas, my scrapping days are a bit behind me. So as much as it’d do my heart good to chib your perverted little ratface back through your arsehole, I’m afraid that’s not really an option. But I promise you, if you so much as breathe at those ladies wrong, I will be on the phone to human resources first thing come daylight, and I will do my level best to make sure there are charges filed against you. Are we clear?”

Master’s lip was twitching. He looked fit to spit nails if he was given half a chance. “Crystal,” he snapped.

“Wonderful.” John made for the heavy door, twisting the handle. The door crackled, gave a fraction, a thin whistle of cold wind coming through the infinitesimal gap, and stopped. It wasn’t iced over, not properly. The outer storage was sheltered, but it was cold enough it had frosted up the gap in the door frame just enough to stick fast.

“Damn. Gimme a hand here, door’s stuck.”

Masters socked his shoulder against the door.

“On three,” John said. The itching in his chest was maddening. He zipped his coat all the way up, ducking his head to cover his mouth and nose with the collar, puffing in what little warmish air he could.

 _“Three!”_ Masters lunged suddenly, driving his shoulder into the door.

John yelped as the door popped open with a loud crack, sending him spilling down the short steps to the concrete floor, flashlight tumbling from his grip, scraping skin from the heels of his hands and twisting his left knee painfully beneath him. The storage room was sheltered but not heated, and the pavement was icy cold. The first lungful of cold air hit his lungs like ice water, and he coughed it back up, pins and needles pricking up and down his arms and chest as he rocked and wheezed.

Masters stood over him, regarding his current state with mild distaste. “Ooh, sorry about that, Granddad. Guess I got a little over-eager.” He squatted, knees popping. “Y’know I gotta tell you, friend. You don’t look so good.”

John could feel his face turning purple, as much from humiliation as from strain. _Brokedown old fool, you can’t even protect yourself let alone anyone else._ There was a horrible tearing sensation in his chest, and he groaned and hocked up some horrible mass of spongy tissue that did not feel like phlegm. He spat into the darkness, wiping his mouth judiciously without sparing a glance to whatever had torn itself loose.

Masters tutted. “In point of fact, you’re in just about the sorriest state I’ve seen anybody who wasn’t rattling the chain ‘round the pearly gates.” The man rocked back on his heels, chuckling.

“I’m good enough,” John grated and pulled himself up, hanging onto the door handle for purchase. His knee throbbed but just barely took his weight. A hot flush surged through him. The first sharp little beads of sweat formed across his forehead, stinging in the cold. Not good. Not good at all.

John waited. A taste of copper lingered in the back of his throat. His stomach knotted. He balled his fists but did not raise them, shifting his weight to his good foot.

“If you mean to try it, be my guest,” he said. Every word hurt, like his chest was full of knives. “Have at. Then you can have a jolly old time explaining to the day manager why you took the half-dead porter out into the cold for a few rounds. I mean, provided I don’t just keel over after one hit, right? Come on. Give those chains a good rattle, mate.”

The glee drained away from Masters’ face, leaving only that ratty, pinched look of disdain. The prick didn’t want a fight, especially one that might leave a half-frozen corpse in the storage shed of his employers. “Well, well,” he said bitterly. “Spunky old fuck, aren’t you?”

John pointed to the far corner. “Generator,” he snarled.

“Yeah, yeah. Right. Generator.”

Only when Masters had backpedaled a good five feet did John bend to retrieve the flashlight. The generator was shored up behind a plywood and chainlink partition, latched but not locked. The beast itself wasn’t quite as old as the rest of the building would’ve left him to believe, but it was hardly new. It was, at least, fairly well maintained by the looks of everything. The fuel tank was nearly full with diesel, and the exhaust hose still had a solid seal. Small mercies, finally. Master had been right about one thing: this was not a two man job. The generator had a simple on/off switch and a pull cord. Flip one, pull the other.

John flipped the switch. He took a deep breath, hiding his mouth and nose under the collar of his coat again, and pulled the cord. The generator belched fitfully, then roared, sending up little wafts of exhaust and steam into the cold. The open doorway filled with thin light as the electrics kicked on.

“Right. In,” John said, jabbing the maglite at the open door. “And I meant what I said. I don’t much care what happens to me, doesn’t matter much at the end of the day. But you leave them alone.”

 _“Yes sir,”_ Masters sneered.

 

_\- 1:59am_

“Blimey, you look like death, you alright?” London jogged up as John came limping in, rubbing her palms nervously on the legs of her jeans.

John shook his head dismissively. “Back door was stuck, took a tumble, I’ll be fine. Everyone alright here?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re good. Susan had to use the ladies, Clara went with, so I gave them the torch. They’ve been gone for a few though. Clara’s been looking kinda pale, probably just nerves or bad cafeteria nosh.”

“I’ll go check on them.”

London blinked. “I mean, that’s sweet, sort of, but it is a ladies’ room. Fairly certain you’re not a lady. I can do it.”

“I didn’t say I was going to just walk in. There’s this fantastic thing that got invented a while back called knocking. People do it on doors, I hear. Wild stuff, thought I’d give it a shot.” He spared a glance at Masters, who had found himself a spot on a bench in the far corner and was fanning through the pages of some expired magazine.

“Here,” he said, an idea striking him. He pulled the keys from his belt, found the strange, fat, round one, and held it out to her. “Vending machine. Bottom of the panel. Be sure you lift up when you try to open, it sticks.”

“You sure? Won’t you get in trouble?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh I’ll definitely get in trouble. They’ll whinge and moan and take twenty dollars in junk food out of my next paycheck. To hell with ‘em. You lot could use a pick me up.”

“Sweet!”

The bathrooms were down a narrow hallway next to a janitorial closet and a pay phone. John raised his hand to knock, then froze. A grunt came from inside, followed by a thud. In his mind he saw Blackpool dropping like a stone to the stone tiled floor and any sense of propriety immediately fled. He threw the door open and staggered in, preparing himself for anything.

It wasn’t Blackpool that had fallen. Susan, the older blonde, lay half-propped against the tiled wall under the electric hand dryer. Her eyes were rolled up to the whites, lids fluttering, mouth ajar. It was the sort of vacant, ecstatic look John had only ever associated with either good drugs or good sex. Blackpool bent over her, stroking her hair gently, face buried in the blonde woman’s neck.

“B-Blackpool?”

Her head snapped up. A thin line of blood trickled from one corner of her mouth. Her eyes had gone a bright, burnished gold like wedding bands around wide, blown pupils. “Fuck. Glasgow,” she said, almost mournfully. Her canines were too long, too sharp, bone-white spindles glinting bloody in the greasy fluorescent lights. “Please don’t be scared.”

 _Please don’t be scared_. It was more than a request. He felt it hit the center of his brain, the flow of adrenaline suddenly ceasing. The scream he felt bubbling up died off in his throat. He was not calm, but his fear had been stopped wholesale. The shock of it, after everything, was too much. His knees gave, and he collapsed in a tangled heap.

Blackpool watched him fall, pained, as if she hadn’t meant to use whatever power she’d thrown at him. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. Give me one moment. I can explain. I promise you. Please. Just let me explain.”

She stuck her thumb in her mouth, and John heard an unpleasant crunch of as one of those fangs punched through the skin. She squeezed until the blood ran, then swiped it across the neat punctures on Susan’s neck. They closed almost instantly, and Blackpool bent to lick away the remains.

“This, this isn’t, this can’t be. You can’t be…”

And then she was beside him, cold hands cupping his face. He squeezed his eyes shut. Sharp nails scraped against the sides of his scalp. He breathed her in, a bouquet of bloody lilac and dark chocolate like a grim valentine, and beneath it something darker, wilder, older. Here at last was death, not inside him but above him, with feral teeth and bloody breath. The first tears, hot and stinging, started to fall. In the absence of his fear he was left with a cold, bone-deep emptiness, a ragged hole where the fear had been. He marked the shape of it with mild interest, noted where it sat, the odd frayed ends where it connected to him. It was a queer sensation, this detachment, but the separation brought with it it’s own horrible realization: in this manner or any other, he was afraid to die.

Her thumbs traced the hollows of his face. “Glasgow. _Doctor._ Look at me. Please.”

Cautiously he opened his eyes. The gold in her eyes was fading slowly back to warm brown, fangs receding. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her hands fell away, and whatever control she had imposed on him fell with it. She slumped away from him, wild patches of roses blooming in her cheeks.

“I didn’t want you to see that,” she said.

“Tell me I’m delirious, Blackpool,” he whispered. “Do that. Please. Tell me I’m crazy. Anything.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not.”

“This is real?”

“Yes.”

John passed a hand over his face. “You’re a vampire. Vampires are real and you’re one of them.”

“Yes.”

“Right. Okay.” A long beat. Then: “Is she dead? Did you kill her?”

“No,” Blackpool said immediately. “I don’t do that. I  _won't_  do that. I took no more than I needed. She would’ve given up more in the back of a Red Cross van. She’ll only be out for a few minutes.”

John’s laugh sounded horrible to his own ears, something mad and hyena-like, high and wheezing and verging on hysterical. “Then we should get her out of here. Quickly, before someone else comes to check.”

Blackpool stared blankly at him. “What?”

“Would you rather leave her on the lavatory floor?”

“No, I just… You’re going to help me? You saw what I did, and you’re going to help me?” she asked disbelievingly.

“For the moment, yes. I’m going to help you. And then I’m going to put the kettle on, and you and I are going to sit down and you are going to explain this to me, because right now I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“And what about the rest of them? What will you tell them?”

“What will you tell them?” he asked, too sharply. “I found you in here with her after she’d collapsed. If anyone needs a story here it’s you.”

“She fainted,” Blackpool said without hesitation. She didn’t even blink. “Clocked her head on the tiles.”

“Fine. Good enough. There are cots in the back in the driver’s room. We can lay her down there. Help me get her up.”

He moved to get up, but his knee buckled, and he slid back to the floor, stifling a yelp.

“What happened, what’s wrong?” She was leaning towards him cautiously, hands out.

“I…” he considered, reconsidered, shook his head. “Door to the back was frozen shut. We got it open, but I took a spill. It’s fine, I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, so you keep telling me.” That concern was back, her mouth set, brow furrowed. Carefully, she laid a hand on his knee, feeling him wince away from the touch. Reflexively, she put her other hand to his chest, meaning to hold him still or calm him, he wasn’t sure which, but then she stopped dead.

The hand on his chest slid down, twisted, curled around his ribs. Her face fell. She could feel it. Somehow she could. He’d found her not five minutes ago feeding on the blood of some upper middle class housewife in a public bathroom and now here she was on her knees beside him with pain and pity in her eyes, fingers finding in seconds what it had taken sixteen hours in an ER and a CT scan for the doctors to find. “Oh God. Glasgow-”

“Don’t,” he said, his heart in his throat, strangling the word. “Not now.”

She swallowed hard. “Alright. Alright, I won’t. But your knee will not hold up you and her both, and you’re running a fever. It’s not bad, not yet. I can help, a little, if you’ll trust me to.”

John found his mouth too dry to speak. The initial shock was fading, and the fear he’d felt for that brief moment still had not returned to take its place. Behind Blackpool on the tiles, Susan had taken to snoring gently. The banality of it was jarring, clattering up against the still-fresh image of the grotesquerie he had stumbled in on. It was getting harder and harder to believe he had seen what he had seen. Monsters, in his limited experience, were not meant to be merciful.

What, then, did that make her?

He asked, “What did you have in mind?”

She held up her right hand in offering. Blood still trickled slowly from her thumb. “It won’t change you, not like me,” she added reassuringly. The hand on his side squeezed gently. “And I’m sorry, but it won’t cure you. But it will help for a time.”

_Heaven help me. This night cannot get any stranger._

He nodded dumbly. “Alright.”

John opened his mouth and waited, thinking distantly of kneeling before a priest for communion. Blackpool slid her thumb into his mouth, three neat droplets of blood collecting on his tongue. _Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed._

The effect was almost instantaneous. The pain in his leg vanished, the stiffness in his joints, too. The prickling flush of the building fever faded, leaving in its stead a low, pleasant hum. He felt good. He felt fantastic, actually, the hum building into something warm and sweet that made a small shiver trickle down his spine. Instinctively, he moved forward, wanting more, but Blackpool pulled her bloodied thumb back and held him fast.

“No. That’s enough.”

John blinked, hearing his breathing come a little too quick and ragged. “Sorry,” he said stupidly.

“It’s ok. I should’ve warned you first.” She rocked back onto her feet. “Can you stand?”

He laughed. “I think I could run the Boston Marathon right now. What the hell are you made of, morphine and adderall?”

“And slugs and snails and puppydog tails.” She smiled and offered him a hand.

For the first time in maybe fifteen years, John’s back and knees gave no protest as he stood. _Three drops,_ he marveled. _Better than Vicodin._

Susan gave a snorting groan and half-rolled onto her side, sliding down a little further toward the floor with her blonde hair trailing sticking to the tiles, trailing above her in a little fan. She was mumbling, a train of words lost in a slur of sleep, the only thing John could make out sounded suspiciously like “pancakes”.

Lifting her was astonishingly easy, as if she weighed nothing at all. Carrying her out proved to be far more awkward. Blackpool was so damned short and John so tall that Susan hung askew between their shoulders like a sagging laundry line. In his present state, John felt he could’ve hoisted her one-armed on his own, but everyone had seen him limp in from the back, and this didn’t need to seem any stranger than it already was. John managed to use his elbow to pry the door open just far enough to jam one bony hip through and shove it the rest of the way.

“Oi!” he called out, surprised at the strength of his own voice. “London! We could use a little help!”

The squeak of her shoes echoed down the hall. London gasped when she rounded the corner, her jog turning into a sprint. “Oh my god, what happened? Is she okay?”

“I dunno she just passed out,” Blackpool said as they hobbled her out to the hallway. “One minute we were drying our hands and talking about wanting breakfast and next thing I know she’s just collapsed.”

Oh, she was good. John kept his eyes judiciously forward, jerking his head in the vague direction of the back offices. “There’s a cot in the driver’s break room, give us a hand with the doors, yeah?”

“Yeah! Of course, yeah, doors, I can do doors,” Bill said, jogging along nervously beside them.

There was a small outcry when they cleared the lounge as the other passengers got a look at the unconscious woman.

“She’s alright,” John said in his best reassuringly authoritative tone. “Just a little fainting spell, nothing to worry about.”

 _“Pancakes,”_ Susan grumbled.

“Hey, you’re comin’ round,” Blackpool said, giving the woman a hopeful pat.

“I want pancakes. There’s _nooo_ pancakes,” Susan whined, head lolling. _“I-wanna-speak-to-your-manager.”_

“Does anybody know, did she eat anything in Cheyenne?” London asked loudly, pushing open the door to the back offices. A few folk shrugged. “Might be low blood sugar. Moira, my foster mum, she gets it all the time, goes a little too long between meals and gets all wobbly.  Passed out in Sainsbury's once on a display full of kievs.”

The driver’s room was small, walls painted the same ancient off-green as the rest of the place. A long faded brown couch sat catty-cornered next to a big boxy television with at least half of its plastic buttons snapped off. Three cots were lined up in the back, past a round chipped formica table under a row of tall, narrow windows. London scooted past them, shoving peeling vinyl chairs out of the way, and waved them to one of the green cots.

“Alright, ease her down,” John said, slipping the woman from his shoulders. “Get her feet please.”

London stooped and grabbed Susan’s fleece-lined Uggs. “So what do we do? I mean we can’t get a doctor in.”

John bent, feeling around on the woman’s wrist, counting beats and watching the second hand on the yellowed clock face on the wall tick by. “Damned if I know,” he said. “No medical bracelet, anyway, so . Pulse seems good, at least, but if she knocked her head on the way down she’s gonna have a hell of a headache when she comes around.”

He turned to London, who was chewing fretfully on her nails. “Can you stay here, keep an eye on her?”

“Yeah, yeah of course.”

“If she wakes up, make sure she stays put, don’t let her up. I’ll get another round of tea and coffee started and bring you a handful of nibbles out of the machine. Hopefully, it is just one too many missed meals.”

London tucked herself onto the cot next to Susan, hands around her knees.

 

_\- 2:20am_

John left a stack of foil-wrapped Mrs. Field’s cookies and two styrofoam cups of tea with London. She seemed grateful, piling up the foil packets on the TV tray someone had turned into an erstwhile cot-side table and starting immediately on her tea, but her face was strained and the flesh under her eyes was beginning to bulge and sag.

“You ok?” he asked, nudging her shoulder gently.

“Yeah,” she said, an easy and automatic lie. He tipped his head, a wordless question, and she sighed. “No. I mean, it’s stupid. Don’t mind me.”

“If you’re not alright, you’re not alright,” John said, sitting carefully on the last empty cot. “It’s been a weird night. You’re allowed to not be alright all the time.”

“I just, I’ve had this bad feeling all day, and it just keeps getting worse. Like, I’m just about the least intuitive person you’ll ever meet. Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you that. Night out on a pub crawl, I tried to ask the number of this gorgeous girl, and it wasn’t until we actually left that pub that my friends bothered to point out that the girl’s boyfriend was sitting next to her the whole time. Something could be staring me right in the face waving a little flag and I’d never see it. But…” She trailed off picking at the rim of the styrofoam cup.

“But?” he asked. The tiniest push.

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered, as if afraid someone would hear, “or is gonna be wrong. I feel like, like I’m standing on a diving board, and there’s no water in the pool. Just right at the edge of something awful. I can feel it in my stomach, snaking around. The longer this day goes on, and the more happens, the worse it gets. And I keep trying to ignore it because it’s stupid, you know? Queen of the Oblivious suddenly turns anxiety-psychic. That’s just not a thing.”

John leaned forward on his elbows. “You’re scared.”

She laughed. “Yeah, Dumbo. I’m scared. Properly bricking it.”

“Me too,” he said gently.

London looked at him, all at once stricken and relieved, and burst into tears.

“I just wanna go home to my girlfriend,” she said between hitching sobs. “We had a fight before I left on holiday. Heather, she was supposed to come with me, and then she couldn’t, and I said something stupid, and she said something stupid, and we were both just so bloody _stupid._ I haven’t even been able to phone her since I left. Too bloody chicken. And today I woke up cold and miserable in a cheap motel with mouse-eaten sheets, and the very first thought in my head was: I’m never gonna see her again. And the last thing she’s going to remember of us is me slamming the door.”

After everything that had happened that night, somehow this was the worst. London was a sweet girl, bright and sharp and funny, and seeing her crumble in some grubby little back office hurt in some fundamental fashion John couldn’t quite name. He wanted to comfort her, but Christ, he was terrible at comfort anymore. The part of him he’d swung open so easily to admit others had all but rusted shut with grief and disuse.

John dropped to a crouch and tugged one of her hands into his. “There is nothing wrong with scared, London,” he said, willing his voice to softness. “Scared keeps you from sticking forks in light sockets or playing tag with traffic. And scared is how you know when something matters to you. _Really_ matters. Because you don’t fear losing the things that have no value to you.”

The shaking in her shoulders was easing, but only just. “It’s not just that.”

“What is it? What is it that has you so sure you’re not going to make it home?”

“I dunno,” she said. “Like I said I just, I felt it, soon as I woke up. It’s stupid, I know.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid. I think you’re a long way from home and things have gone spectacularly pear-shaped. But I think there’s more to it than you’re telling me.” Her hand gave a little jerk. “Is it about the driver?”

London all but shrank into herself, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“That’s a yes, then,” John said.

“Leave it. Please.”

John took a deep breath, all at once too angry to marvel at just how deep and easily he could breathe for the moment. “Alright.” He thought to say more, to promise her protection, safety, to try for a warm, roguish smile and tell her that if Masters meant to get at her he’d have to go through him first, but the incident in the storage room was still too fresh. He was no protector, even if he wanted to be.

Instead, he said: “You ever seen the sun come up over the snow in Colorado?”

London shook her head, sniffling. He gave her hand a squeeze.

“Well,” he said, glancing up at the clock. “In about three hours, you’re going to. And by then the plows will be out, and they’ll dig out this little dungheap of a station so you can get on the next bus to Denver. Yeah? And you’ll call your girlfriend on the bus out and find out she’s probably already forgiven you for the thing you haven’t forgiven yourself for.”

She let out a dry bark that was half sob and half laughter.

“You’re gonna be ok.”

That got a smile through a fresh fall of tears. “Thank you,” she muttered.

He gave her hand one last squeeze. “Drink your tea. I’m just around the corner, alright?”

She nodded, scrubbing at her face with the sleeves of her jumper.

As John turned to leave, he found the doorway occupied. Blackpool stood leaning with her shoulder against the frame, looking at him with a teary sort of disbelief, as though he were the creature spun up from a storybook and not her.

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re real,” she said.

He propped open the door to the break room with his elbow. “So sayeth the vampire,” he muttered softly.

“It’s easy to believe in monsters,” she said earnestly. “After awhile it gets harder to believe in kindness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas, no new songs to add to the tally this go 'round. I promise that will change in the next chapter, though.


End file.
